Daughter Abby is home for a month. She can work from here and took vacation around the holidays. It’s pleasant to have that bird back in the empty nest.

Abby has lived on three continents since leaving home. She’s spent time in wonderful places: Paris, Geneva, and Bogota. Everywhere, she found young and exciting people to hang out with. I worried that a month in Sleepy Eye with aging parents might bore her. Pam and I, after all, count a trip to the grocery store as a big day.

I’m not that interesting a person in the normal course of events. Then, to make matters worse, I spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s in various states of unwell. Cold and fluey symptoms crept over me which led to me “being sick.” I was even less fun and interesting.

It never got terrible, but I spent a few hours in bed feeling achy, yecky and blah. Those terms are descriptive, although not medically accurate.

I don’t do “sick” well. Knock on wood, I don’t get sick often. When I do, my wife says I can be sort of a baby. That’s probably true. I quickly turn toward self-pity. Mae West famously said, “I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor, and rich is better.” Well, I’ve been healthy, and I’ve been sick, and healthy is better.

COVID was a large reminder that an unseen world holds power over our lives. Microbiology is the study of tiny creatures that live around us. Some of them live in us. Viruses, bacteria, algae, fungi, slime molds, and protozoa aren’t visible to our eyes. They outnumber us by a ridiculous amount. They were here long before us and will be long after we’re gone. They’re simple lifeforms, but impressive in their ability to survive and thrive.

It’s only in recent human history that we became aware of these fellow travelers. Science learned of viruses a little more than a century ago. I knew that it was some sort of virus that caused my misery. And that it passed to me on the breath of someone I crossed paths in the days before.

Knowing it was a virus didn’t help me feel any better, but it gave causation to my runny nose and coughing. Before microscopes, my state of discomfort would have been ascribed to what? Bad luck? Punishment for my sins? Weakness of mind or body?

Christians believe there is an unseen devil who can mess with our lives. It’s too bad there is no instrument to tell us when he is near. Continued bad behaviors by our species is proof.

The virus that infected me has likely been prowling the Earth for as long as our species has existed. It is part of the delicate concoction of life forms that mingle on the surface of this planet. We can curse their existence, but they have purpose beyond our understanding. It’s like cursing mosquitoes. Nature needs mosquitoes, and our discomfort with them isn’t the point.

When one of these viral hitchhikers hops along for a ride, a great pushing and shoving match inside us ensues. The virus wants to move in. Meanwhile, gallant white blood cells want to evict them ASAP. That’s our immune system. We cannot appreciate enough a healthy immune system. If we don’t have one, we’re not going to be around long.

A gradually declining immune system is one of those darn things that happens as we get older. Living healthily will have benefits, but still our bodies will weaken with age. We don’t live forever, so it is part of our demise.

I tested for COVID and was negative for that. Last time I was sick was in 2020, and that was COVID in its early crazy spreading days. That was when people were dying as COVID was a new bug that our bodies hadn’t developed any resistance to. I suspect the bug that hit me near Christmas was one my white blood cells had seen before. They were prepared for this fight.

This was one of those that toggled between a cold and a flu. One hour it felt more like an annoying cold, where I should stay on my tasks. The next hour it felt like flu, and I needed to lay down. Breathing was about all I could accomplish in those moments. As I grew tired through the day, I felt worse. Our defense mechanism which has energy in the morning hours wears out by dusk.

Steve Canon, WCCO radio guy, referred to a cold/flu as having the “alien.” That feels about right. Once the alien has moved in, it’s all about symptoms. “Symptoms” is another word for “all the ways you can feel crappy.”

For several days, my most noteworthy symptom was a runny nose. “Runny nose” is a euphemism for something that if your nose were a faucet, you’d call your plumber immediately. When you are so afflicted, there are not enough Kleenexes in the world, much less your bedroom.

At times, my uncooperative nose teamed with a cough. Coughs don’t make sense. No matter how much you don’t want to cough, you do. And the more you don’t want to, the more you do.

Both these symptoms make it difficult to sleep. And the less you sleep, the sicker you feel. And the sicker you feel, the less you sleep. Talk about your vicious cycle.

The alien can express itself with nausea and a headache. I was thankful to not deal with those. I have in the past, but they have often followed a night of over-consumption. Those are regrettable, but not the fault of viruses. There is only myself to blame.

We pass these viruses back and forth between us. The days before my cold/flu, Abby and I were out a couple of nights in New Ulm. Mixing with people there was a likely source. Someone somewhere was contagious.

The guilty party probably didn’t know. It is a clever strategy of viruses to spread readily in the early hours of infection. Those bugs know how to get around. I’ll try not to breathe on you.

— Randy Krzmarzick farms on the home place west of Sleepy Eye, where he lives with his wife, Pam.